ON COMPUTERS | BY BOB AND JOY SCHWABACH
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December 2007, Week 4 |
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GOT THAT OLD MOJO WORKING
This digital Mojo lets you put any program onto any hard drive, flash or
otherwise, and then run that program on any Windows XP computer anywhere
you happen to be. Attaching your Mojo-enhanced drive to that PC makes it
come up with your own familiar desktop screen and all your familiar
programs. Beats lugging your laptop.
We first came across it recently as part of StealthSurfer, a $179 flash
drive that lets you surf the Web, well, stealthily. But we can beat the
devil out of that price,
But, the well-informed among you will argue, StealthSurfer contains
other programs that are useful, like Tor, which lets you surf the Web
like the proverbial ghost in the machine. No matter what site you visit,
it doesn't know you've been there. But that one is free too, from
TorProject.org. So let us move
on and talk about the import, and importance, of these free programs.
Joy loaded MojoPac onto her iPod. It can be loaded onto any device with
its own storage drive, be that a flash drive or a traditional spinning
disk hard drive. It needs just 128MB for itself. Joy chose to load it
onto her iPod because that has 80GB of storage, enough to hold the Mojo
and just about any other program we can think of, even games like Halo
or WarCraft.
Our Mojo-enhanced iPod is the only computer device we'll need when
traveling. (Too bad we never go anywhere.)
Another new feature we found in StealthSurfer is Hushmail. Hushmail is a
free e-mail service from Hushmail.com
that encrypts your e-mail as well as scans it for viruses and filters
out spam. The premium version, which comes on StealthSurfer, lets you
have unlimited e-mail accounts plus 250MB of storage for $50 a year.
Other useful software found on the StealthSurfer is also available for
free. This includes the excellent Web browser Thunderbird from
Mozilla.com, and RoboForm from
RoboForm.com. This last
automatically fills out forms on the Web and remembers and encrypts all
your passwords.
GUITAR STARTER
Why is it that children all over the land seem to be taking guitar
lessons now? Is it an effect of the successful video game Guitar Hero?
Probably not. It's a mystery, but with a catchy tune.
A lot of guitars will be gifted this season. And to go with these, we
found a great
If the disks are run on a Mac with the new Leopard operating system, the
guitar lessons can be combined with iTunes, Garage Band and iChat in a
four-panel view that lets you play along and then join others playing
through the chat connection. The Windows version has the same great
instruction but without the special Mac features.
The company also has a $30 program of guitar lessons, Play Music
Together, aimed at children 10 and under who like a Muppet-type
character to play along. Like Beginning Guitar, it has great video
tutorials. The program is available for PC or Mac.
BILL ME LATER
BillMeLater.com
is an alternative payment system for people who are leery of giving out
their credit card information over the Web. It's an easy-to-use service
and Web site that lets people shop now and pay later at over 700 Web
sites. You enter your name and birth date and the last four digits of
your Social Security Number. The service then does a credit search on
you in about three seconds to determine if you're an acceptable risk for
paying later. BillMeLater pays the merchant for your purchases and then,
well, bills you later. About 3 million people have signed up so far.
BOOKS
"Upgrading and Repairing PCs, 18th edition" by Scott Mueller; book and
DVD, $60 from quepublishing.com.
The title tells you most of what you need to know about this book, and
the CD, in which Scott Mueller explains the contents of each chapter,
tells you that true nerds still exist. Thank heavens for that. One of
the new things in this edition --
The wireless security section is particularly timely these days for many
businesses. Discount store chain TJ Maxx had 45.7 million credit card
numbers stolen this year, for instance, in what is euphemistically known
as an "unauthorized intrusion."
The company used the old WEP encryption system for its data. WEP stands
for Wired Equivalent Privacy and its code can be broken by software
that's available for free on the Web. Many businesses still use WEP
encryption, however, because it's cheap. NOTE: Readers can search several years of columns here at oncomp.com or seven years worth of columns at oncomp2.com
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Mojo
is an old African term for a talisman with magic powers. Now it's
digital.
